"Gold is not a phantom currency as many say, it is the US currency that is the phantom."
Charles Biderman, February 27, 2012
Charles Biderman gives a step by step analysis of the key data that some say shows an 'economic recovery.'
Accounting tricks, statistical smoke and mirrors, and a stock rally fueled by Fed printing do not reflect the real state of the US economy.
There is evidence that the situation has stabilized. The problem is that the stimulus which the Fed is providing is not directed towards productive activity sufficient to spark a genuine recovery with a rising median wage. Rather, it is being used to prop up a dysfunctional economy that is still rife with corruption, malinvestment, and insider dealings designed to transfer even more wealth to the top one percent. And the prescription being offered by the perpetrators, for the maladies of their crisis, is to take more from the poor and the weak, and pay for an excess of fraud with their pains.
And those who know better, with the exception of a notable few, either stand aside and are silent, or sell their integrity to a partisan cause, self-interest, or the highest bidder.
The financial crisis has provided the excuse for what has the appearance of institutionalized looting by a powerful elite through a dual standard of justice and the steady debasement of the national currency. Neither austerity or stimulus will work until the economy is restructured and reformed. But stagnation is achievable, as long as the dollar lasts. Or until the great reckoning comes, and the grapes of wrath are pressed.
